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Published: January 22nd 2010
We have now left Vietnam and we're in Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Our last stop in Vietnam was Saigon in the South where we visited the Cu Chi tunnels which was one of the main areas that was sympathetic to the North and was carpet bombed and sprayed with the defoliant 'agent orange' during the war. Having spent the last few weeks visiting amazingly beautiful UNESCO World Heritage sites we've been somewhat brought down to earth by the history of this area which is, as we all know where war is concerned, brutal on all sides. However, the visitor centre at Cu Chi has done a really good job of making it interesting rather than depressingly graphic which is just as well for some of us emotional types. We didn't take too many pictures as we felt that being snap-happy tourists wasn't appropriate in such an area, but we thought that a couple of photos showing how small the tunnel entrances were would be of interest. There is also a photo of me crawling through one of the tunnels, but that was only possible because they've made the entrance quite a bit bigger! Both of us felt quite claustrophobic down there,
so we came up fairly quickly. Apparently there were 200 km of tunnels on 3 levels and the women used to take the soil to the Mekong to dispose of it so that no trace was left of tunnels being built. Ingenious really.
We also visited the Independence Palace which replaced the bombed Presidential Palace. Some of you may remember the image of two tanks pushing through the palace gates on 30th April 1975 when Vietnam pretty much won the war. But then we redressed the balance a bit and visited Notre Dame cathedral where we sat and listened to beautiful music and a mass in Vietnamese. It was quite something as the cathedral was filled to capacity, and when we had to leave slightly early there were loads of people on scooters listening to the mass from outside. So Vietnam isn't all doom and gloom. A large proportion of the population are under 18 and they seem happy, positive and forward looking. They definately don't dwell in the past.
Cambodia is one of the world's poorest countries not least because it was involved in everyone else's wars for years - and then Pol Pot and the Khmer
Rouge decimated it during the four years from 1975 - 1979. Those of us old enough to remember will know about his repressive and genocidal regime that closed schools and hospitals, made all religions illegal and killed all the intelligent people. Pol Pot thought that making everyone a farmer was the way to go. However, again there is a very large proportion of young people who are hard working and forward looking. If you take our guide, Sawat, as an example he speaks 6 languages and has great ambitions to do well in life and be able to help his fellow Cambodians. (Actually I should make it clear that Sawat is his phonetic name, but it's spelt Savath).
Intrepid and Gap are involved in lots of projects in Indochina that give young people a trade so that they can build themselves a future. The trades are mainly in restaurants and beauty salons, but they also support organisations that sell products made by people with disabilities so it's all good, because at least when we're visiting the restaurants etc and supporting various charities in this way, we don't feel so bad that we can't give money to everyone on the
streets.
It's quite a tough area for us soft Westerners to visit, in fact I dipped out of visiting anything related to Pol Pot, but it's well worth it for the experience. We're of to Siem Reap tomorrow to visit Angkor Wat which everyone is really excited about. At the very least it will remind us all of the wonderful things that humans are capable of.
Our three months is nearly over now and we're beginning to dream of our comfortable home, drinking lots of tea and boring you all to tears with our traveller's tales. So be warned - and don't try crossing the street to avoid us because we'll follow you.
Best wishes and see you all soon - Angela and Harry xx
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vivien carey
non-member comment
its meeee
Hello my little intrepid travellers as you can see i am keeping up with all your jaunts, and wishing i was with you, as always take good care of each other love vivx